Labels having pressure sensitive adhesive have been applied to drug containers for a long time by the pharmaceutical industry to identify the customer, the doctor, the drug being dispensed, and the frequency of the dosage. These labels usually can be purchased in bundles that can be fed into a computer driven printer. The information to be printed on one of the labels is either typed into the computer using a conventional pharmacy computer program or is retrieved from a stored record having been previously typed into the computer memory using the pharmacy computer program. Such a computer program also has automatically printed out receipts for the customer and records for the pharmacy.
The pharmaceutical industry has also been applying oblong or rectangular warning labels to the drug containers for some time. These warning labels warn the customer about certain events or provide instructions involving the prescribed drug. For example, a warning label may carry the message:
MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS; ALCOHOL MAY INTENSIFY THIS EFFECT. USE CARE WHEN OPERATING A CAR OR DANGEROUS MACHINERY.
The warning labels have been supplied to the pharmaceutical industry for some time in rolls of the same message.
Pharmacies have also been supplying customers with an instruction sheet containing information about the drugs they are purchasing. One type of such labels carry the brand name PAL (Patient Advisory Leaflet).
The prior art also contains references which teach the use of a computer system to generate prescription labels printed by a computer driven printer Such references include the following U.S. patents, which are incorporated herein by reference: Baum U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,604; Olodort et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,875,174; and McKee U.S. Pat. No. 4,972,657. The prior art also contains references which disclose a manual form having an adhesive label portion used in combination for record keeping and generating a label to be applied to a drug container. Examples of U.S. patents, which are incorporated herein by reference, disclosing such forms are the Lockhart U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,277,089 and 4,159,129; and the Biava et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,799,712.
However, there is no known prior art reference which provides a blank for a computer printer that contains portions for both a removable prescription drug label and a removable warning label with portions for other printed information. Such a system would reduce package costs, provide greater flexibility, and be compatible with existing computer software used by pharmacies.